They Took The Khan's Hands And Feet And Began To Recite Exorcisms, Whilst Kubilai Was Laughing." - H. C.]

NOTE 6.

- Marsden and Pauthier identify Cachar Modun with Tchakiri Mondou, or Moudon, which appears in D'Anville's atlas as the title of a "Levee de terre naturelle," in the extreme east of Manchuria, and in lat. 44 deg., between the Khinga Lake and the sea. This position is out of the question. It is more than 900 miles, in a straight line from Peking, and the mere journey thither and back would have taken Kublai's camp something like six months. The name Kachar Modun is probably Mongol, and as Katzar is = "land, region," and Modun = "wood" or "tree," a fair interpretation lies on the surface. Such a name indeed has little individuality. But the Jesuit maps have a Modun Khotan ("Wood-ville") just about the locality supposed, viz. in the region north of the eastern extremity of the Great Wall.

[Captain Gill writes (River of Golden Sand, I. p. 111): "This country around Urh-Chuang is admirably described [in Marco Polo, pp. 403, 406], and I should almost imagine that the Kaan must have set off south-east from Peking, and enjoyed some of his hawking not far from here, before he travelled to Cachar Modun, wherever that may have been."

"With respect to Cachar Modun, Marco Polo intends perhaps by this name Ho-si wu, which place, together with Yang-ts'un, were comprised in the general name Ma t'ou (perhaps the Modun of M. Polo). Ma-t'ou is even now a general term for a jetty in Chinese.

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